Abalone poachers given jail sentences

Steve Butcher

Two Victorian abalone poachers – including a former Iraq security adviser – have received prison sentences for trafficking a commercial quantity of the endangered species.

Simon Hillman, 42, and Andrew Carpmael, 49 – who operates a bed and breakfast business on the Mornington Peninsula – were targeted in an operation by Victorian fisheries officers.

Officers arrested the men in November 2010 near a Sunshine Chinese restaurant in possession of about 30 kilograms of illegally harvested abalone.

The abalone had a commercial value of $7900.

It was later revealed that abalone had been repeatedly taken from waters in East Gippsland and once at Cape Otway over four months in 2010.

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On Friday Judge Mark Dean in the County Court jailed Carpmael, of Rosebud, who has similar prior convictions, for 18 months with a minimum of nine months.

Hillman, of Rye, received a 12-month jail sentence suspended for two years.

Carpmael was also banned for 10 years and Hillman for three years from any involvement with anything related to abalone.

Each had pleaded guilty to a charge of trafficking in a commercial quantity of abalone, a Victorian priority species.

Fisheries officers who arrested the men in a car park found they had just transferred two large hessian bags containing abalone into the vehicle of a co-offender.

The abalone had a commercial value of $7900.

Also found was sophisticated equipment, including camouflaged wetsuits and night-vision devices.

It was then revealed, as a result of further information, that Hillman, sometimes with Carpmael, had driven to East Gippsland six times to harvest commercial quantities of abalone and arrived the next day at the restaurant to sell the meats to the co-defendant.

Hillman also drove once to the Cape Otway area to harvest abalone.

Judge Dean said that each load of the abalone harvested and sold weighed between 30 and 60 kilograms.

The co-offender, who gave evidence against the men at an earlier contested committal hearing, received a wholly suspended sentence for his role.

In his sentencing remarks, Judge Dean said it had not been revealed how each man became involved in the enterprise, but they had participated in a "sophisticated and illegal abalone harvesting operation for profit".

Carpmael admitted two abalone-related prior convictions, which Judge Dean noted had not deterred him from reoffending.

He said Carpmael, a father of two, was an "industrious and able" person whose earlier life was traumatised by the deaths of his father and a son.

Judge Dean said Carpmael functioned well in the community and domestically, but he had now offended a third time against a valuable natural resource whose harvesting was "strictly regulated by statute".

He noted that Hillman, a former security adviser in Iraq, had a stable family and employment history, and was a commercial diver and person of good character.